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Table 700 "Error Message" is taking up 12 GB of space

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Posted on by Asfand Yar

So i have a question about this particular table no. 700 called "Error Message". My client has been live since 2022 and so far this Error Message table has 43,364,923 records with a total size of 12,423,256 KB = 12 GB. The largest table in terms of records and size in the database currently.

Is there a way to delete the entries from this table? There is no reason why we need error messages from more than 6 months or 1 year ago. It is taking quite a lot of unnecessary space (also especially when we copy our Production to lower environments). We have also looked into Retention Policy to clean this table up but this table ID is not available in the retention policy.

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Dynamics 365 Business Central

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Sohail Ahmed 11,136 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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That table grows fast because BC logs every posting/validation error there. Since it’s not covered by retention policy, the only way is to clear it yourself either with a small AL routine to delete old records on a schedule (SaaS) or a SQL cleanup if you’re on-prem. Keeping just the last few months is usually enough for troubleshooting.

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Sohail Ahmed 11,136 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Here’s a simple pseudo code you (or your partner/dev) can adapt for cleaning up table 700 "Error Message":

procedure CleanupErrorMessages() var ErrorMsg: Record "Error Message"; CutoffDate: Date; begin // Keep only last 6 months CutoffDate := CalcDate('-6M', Today); if ErrorMsg.FindSet() then repeat if ErrorMsg."Created DateTime" < CutoffDate then ErrorMsg.Delete(); until ErrorMsg.Next() = 0; end;

Create a Job Queue setup so this cleanup runs automatically every month

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Sumit Singh 10,079 on at

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Hi Asfand,

Please refer below links which might help you:-

Clean Up Data with Retention Policies - Business Central | Microsoft Learn

Change Log Entries clean up

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YUN ZHU 95,331 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi, or you can customize a simple cleanup codeunit and set it in the Job Queue to clean up once a month.

Thanks

ZHU

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Khushbu Rajvi. 20,363 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Agree you can create small codeunit which will run in every month

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Satish Srivastava 242 on at

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codeunit 50100 "Error Message Management"
{
Caption = 'Error Message Management';
UsageCategory = Tasks;

procedure CleanupErrorMessages(MonthsToKeep: Integer := 6)
var
ErrorMsg: Record "Error Message";
CutoffDate: Date;
RecordsDeleted: Integer;
begin
// Calculate cutoff date (default = last 6 months)
CutoffDate := CalcDate(StrSubstNo('-%1M', MonthsToKeep), Today);

// Apply filter instead of looping for performance
ErrorMsg.SetRange("Created DateTime", 0DT, CreateDateTime(CutoffDate, 235959T));

if ErrorMsg.FindSet() then begin
RecordsDeleted := ErrorMsg.Count();
ErrorMsg.DeleteAll();

// Optional log/notification
Message('%1 old error message(s) deleted (older than %2).', RecordsDeleted, CutoffDate);
end;
end;

[TryFunction]
procedure SafeCleanupErrorMessages(MonthsToKeep: Integer := 6)
begin
CleanupErrorMessages(MonthsToKeep);
end;
}

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Ramesh Kumar 7,527 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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I hope below article can help you

https://demiliani.com/2025/03/25/dynamics-365-business-central-the-problem-of-large-data-deletion/?utm

Thanks

Ramesh

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Kamal Khakhkhar 1,274 on at

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hii there ,

as per suggested by other members you can apply the code . along with that apply FindSet(true) will do a LockTable() before finding rows, which is an advantage if you plan to update all the rows you are finding.

If you found your answer mark it answered.

Thank You

Kamal Khakhkhar

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